No Miss, no Ms... just Mrs

[guinnessgirl]

Hi all. First op on this board so please be gentle!

I was reading this blog post recently, and it really got me thinking. vagendamagazine.com/2014/09/why-you-shouldnt-bother-calling-yourself-ms/

I disagree with the idea at the end about us all being Mr, but the idea of all adult women being Mrs really appeals to me. As the writer says, for good or bad it's the highest status title of the three that we currently use, and it's got a direct parallel in Mr.

What do you think? And do you think there's any real hope of change if enough women adopted it?

Getting a PhD is awesome, though, at least to the extent that your family would want to acknowledge it, and be proud of you for having worked so hard. It's an odd sort of inverted academic snobbery that insists there's nothing at all good or noteworthy about it.

Shitloads of things are awesome.

It's why I can understand why people who've just got married get excited about using Mrs, and I don't think it is as simple as is sometimes made out. Pride that you've built a strong relationship is good too. The issue there is simply the inequality of it, IMO (both that, until recently, not everyone could get married and that men don't get a title that says so).

Yes, they are - and I think an aunt using the envelope to express that thought her niece's achievements were impressive is a really nice way to recognize the relevant awesomeness in that particular area.

YY, isn't it?

my dad was a professor and his mum always wrote that on the envelope when she sent birthday cards etc - the pride was very sweet

i just address it to him as firstname surname, he didn't care either way (though now i think of it, i might just write "daddums" followed by the address. it would totally wind him up )

the academics i have come into contact with only get irritated with titles being incorrect if you're asking them for something . which i think is quite reasonable actually

I'm afraid I don't agree with Phds being awesome - they are ubiquitous in some industries and very much a requirement. Although it's nice that your family are proud - especially if you are the first - a title is (imo) completely unnecessary. Be proud of what you do - whether that's achieving something at academic level, or raising children, or working to put food on the table - but I cannot fathom why anyone would feel the need to wear a badge to say they have a Phd and equate that with being somehow 'awesome'. Perhaps I just know too many people with varios titles and qualifications - we're not in awe of each other's awesomeness

various

I only wear a badge with it on at work, where I'm given one . Other than that, I don't know of any phd badges, any more than I know of 'mrs' badges: but they're both titles people have assumed through their actions, so why not be known by them? Why would mrs be fine but dr not?

Of course PhDs are required in some industries: that doesn't mean they're not a significant achievement requiring years of work! I don't think people who have them go about thinking 'I'm awesome' (imposter syndrome, anyone?) but if anybody I knew finished one, I'd certainly be telling them they were awesome for all that had work.

I think you are misunderstanding me a bit, really. I have said several times that I don't see the need for the title at all.

All I'm saying is, because the title's there, it's one of the things that reminds you 'ooh, yay, I did it!' If we didn't use titles, nicola wouldn't suddenly stop being proud - which is, I think what she felt earlier in the thread. She'd just not associate it with an arbitrary thing like a title.

I think you're contradicting yourself here, too - you say 'be proud', but what kind of pride is it if you don't feel proud?

As to ubiquitous - well, yes, but children are far more ubiquitous and I've yet to meet a person who said they never felt that sense of 'wow, I just made a person! This is amazing!'

theoriginal - oh, but I certainly went around telling my mate she was awesome when she passed her viva the other day!

I think that is what the aunt who used the letters on an envelope was trying to say too.

I dunno if the disagreement here is because I've used 'awesome' rather than some fancier term?

Likewise, be proud of your lovely husband, but why on earth the need to blazon it as though anyone else might be interested by insisting on being addressed as 'mrs'?

Quiet pride - the kind that you don't need a title to demonstrate. Not a contradiction at all.

Dishing up dinner, will check back later.

I think, Jeanne, that as a lady you should stop being peculiar and opting to be known by a professional title, and just be normal and be identified by whether or not you've got a man. Anything else is just arrogant.

So let's have some quiet pride about being married, then. Just be Ms, everyone!

So how is your 'quiet pride' that doesn't need a title, different from my quiet pride, that doesn't need a title?

at theoriginal.

I think - and I may be being unfair - that sometimes, people are so hell-bent on the idea they've uncovered proof of enormous academic snobbery, they just assume it's there. With me:

• I don't use my title outside work (cos I've been too lazy to sort my ID out yet).
• I have never introduced myself with it in work, so it only comes up when students choose to use it, and I reply to them with my first name.
• I am fully in support of getting rid of all titles.
• I don't see any logic to academics having special titles anyway.

All I'm saying is, we should separate the (natural, probably quite healthy) tendency to feel proud you've done something, whether it's a PhD or a baby or a career move or a successful relationship from the use of titles.

I don't attack that natural tendency to feel proud, but I feel that the title involved creates unnecessary and damaging divisions between people.

I don't think the pride should necessarily be quiet. Women are socialized to be modest about their intellectual achievements.

I think getting a PhD is awesome, or some other similar word if you prefer. Whether the title is used or not, or even whether the degree is used or not, it's an academic achievement on its own; the holder has contributed to the body of knowledge in her field, and that's something to be loud and proud of.

I can't seem to get out of my head that line from A Man for All Seasons when Margaret More is told by Henry VIII that he has heard she is a scholar. "Among women I pass for one, Your Grace." Women are still expected to diminish their intellectual accomplishments.

Yes, and then he can't follow her Latin because she's too good for him.

No, I agree with you it's not good women are socialized to be quiet about achievements. But I would rather that titles weren't the socially acceptable way of demonstrating pride.

I'm sure women get more rolly eyes for using dr than men do.

Yes, and then he can't follow her Latin because she's too good for him.

My favorite movie scene of all time.

Yeah, I think so. It's less usual for women to use it outside work, and I've seen it assumed women Drs (medical or academic) who have children are more likely to be not working. Admittedly, this is going back about ten years, but my then-boyfriend had two parents who were doctors, and his mum told me she regularly found people who met her in the context of her children would assume she was part-time or no longer a working doctor.

It is a good, good scene.

That was either the first or second film I ever saw at the cinema. I must have been about 5 and seem to remember enjoying it then except for the end (which I'd been warned about and was less scary than the nazis in the Sound of Music).